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Wednesday, April 10, 2013

How much has Xenoblade Chronicles been played? Official U.S. Nintendo Channel data report.

Coffee BeansXenoblade Chronicles released last year in the U.S. on April 6th. The game was sold exclusively at GameStop (stores and online) and had a MSRP of $49.99.

The game was developed by Monolith Soft and published by Nintendo, and received an ESRB rating of "TEEN" with "Blood, Mild Language, Partial Nudity, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco, Violence" listed as content for parents and gamers to be aware of.

How many hours have U.S. Wii owners reported playing the Xenoblade Chronicles since it released last year, and about how many U.S. Wii owners now have data reported for the game? Brew yourself some coffee, and let's take a look at the official U.S. Nintendo Channel data, as well as other information about Xenoblade Chronicles!

40+ hours to beat the game?

The BrewXenoblade Chronicles now has approximately 15,193 U.S. Wii owners that have gameplay data reported through the Wii's Nintendo Channel, with 367 days possibly reported. The game has seen an increase of about 12,000 more players with data reported, since its initial data report last year.

Considering Xenoblade Chronicles was somewhat of a limited Wii release, being only available at one retailer, the game's first year of reported data is pretty good. The game now has 650,133 Total Hours reported (shown in the image above), which is an increase of almost 600,000 Total Hours since the initial debut amount.

The game's average reported play-time is now 42 Hours 48 Minutes "Per person", which is an increase of 25 Hours 55 Minutes to its debut average from last year. According to the data shown, U.S. Wii owners spend nearly 3 hours playing Xenoblade Chronicles each time they sit down to play it.

Caffeinated Thoughts
Nintendo released a Wii U Nintendo Direct in January this year, and ended it by showing a new game that Monolith Soft is currently working on for the Wii U. The game was hinted at being titled X, at the end of its trailer, and appears to be a spinoff of Xenoblade Chronicles of some sort.

If you have not seen what Xenoblade Chronicles looks like in action, and if you haven't seen what Monolith Soft's Wii U game looks like, the trailers below should give you a decent idea:

I have not played Xenoblade Chronicles, and don't own it. Seeing some of the asking prices for it on Amazon.com now, and even the "used" price on GameStop.com while putting together this piece makes me think the game won't be joining our collection anytime soon.

That being said though, I do think the reported gameplay data, both the Total Hours and the average "Per person", is pretty impressive for what was a limited U.S. Wii release. If Monolith Soft's new Wii U title provides anywhere close to the average hours "Per person" that Xenoblade Chronicles has for Wii owners, I think it might be worth a buy when it releases (assuming Nintendo of America doesn't take several years to actually publish it, once its fully developed and translated).

QuestionsHave any of you played Xenoblade Chronicles in the last year, and beat it? If so, do you know if your hours to beat the game, are about how many are reflected in the Nintendo Channel data? Is Xenoblade Chronicles a game you would recommend to Wii, or even Wii U owners, that might be looking for a new RPG game to play?If you enjoyed Xenoblade Chronicles, are you looking forward to Monolith Soft's next Wii U game?

37 comments:

I might be the only one, but I thought that average play time per person is very low.

At 42 hours, most people (or, well, anyone who isn't a complete master of speedrunning JRPGs) would not have finished this game. At 42 hours, you could only really finish Xenoblade if you spent no time whatsoever exploring, never died and never backtracked for side quests.

So, less than the average number of people who played the game actually finished it. That's a little disappointing as this is an above average (but by no means perfect) JRPG, and it deserves to be finished.

Interesting feedback, as I saw some comments on user reviews when piecing this together that said they were around 100 hours of play-time. Seeing the average "Per person" increase a good amount since the initial data last year though, makes me wonder if this one will eventually end up around a "finished" average, and if Wii owners are just taking it slowly because of how much time it requires to finish.

Xenoblade Chronicles is my favorite game -- awesome combat mechanics that invites unlimited experimentation, memorable characters, an interesting story with a shocking event (not twist) that caused me to think about it for a couple of weeks, and the most amazing 'world' I have experienced and explored in all my years of gaming.I have read that its possible to complete the game in 60 hours, but I explored and completed all the quests I came across, over 400 quests... most of which lead to you exploring new areas of the world, learning more about the past, connect to the world's NPC characters and learn about their relationships with each other, and most affecting -- seeing the aftermaths of the 'shocking event' and how it affected the various NPCs... which in turn just reinforced how I was affected by what happened.When I finished the game, my game had been played for 172 hours. I did make sure to start the Nintendo Channel to have my time reported, at which point the avg was around 18 hours. I would think that a lot of Xenoblade players have not been using Nintendo Channel to report their time, especially upon completion...I do recommend playing it if you can. 2 friends of mine are playing it right now, both having crossed 100 hours each. One of them is playing in Wii Mode on the Wii U, so his time will never be reported...

One of those games I want to play, and keep meaning to play, but won't get around to playing any time soon given my current backlog. You know, if I *actually* worked for a company that let me play games all day, I'd have more time for this one. :)

"Xenoblade Chronicles is my favorite game..."That's a line ready to be used in a commercial!

"When I finished the game, my game had been played for 172 hours."

Wow! Yeah, I would probably be a slow burner with this one myself. There are games I put lots of hours in quickly (Black Ops 2 was a recent one), but those are few and far between these days.

If Xenoblade ends up landing in our collection, I would probably play it with Wii Mode (like your friend) through the Wii U as well, simply because I think our Wii is about to go out, so I'm trying to minimize its disc drive use now.

The lack of the Nintendo Channel in Wii Mode on the Wii U is one of the biggest reasons I held off on doing the Wii to Wii U transfer initially. I still use the Wii weekly to look/track statistics (like these), so I was a bit disappointed to see Nintendo leave out the Nintendo Channel on the Wii U side.

Do you have this one in your collection? If not, might want to find a friend with a copy, unless you like paying more than MSRP for games...It really is crazy what it's going for, because Amazon is offering MORE on the trade-in credit, than the game's original MSRP.

We know you what do you at work, there's no denying it. ACIII, Tomb Raider, Ni no Kuni, Supersonic...the list is endless. Multiple reviews within days (probably MINUTES!) of each other. I can't even finish ACIII over a weekend, and you....you finish an entire console's library.

Me and my brother both love this game, but whereas I started it out by speeding through the main story (and doing side quests in New Game+), he elected to do as much side questing as possible. But eventually set the game aside to play other games. He still thinks it's a great game, but the sheer amount of content makes it hard to go through the game as a completionist. The gamers skewing the per-person playtime down could fall into this category.

My new game+ file is over hundred hours and I doubt I'm even half through all the side quests. My brother's file I believe was around forty, and he's played more since then.

"I finally got an HDTV..."Haha! I have had a post in draft form since January, about our HDTV hunting/buying experience. I never published it though!

Thanks for the feedback on the hours you have played it. Like I commented above, I wonder if perhaps in another year (or two) the average will be closer to a "finished" average. It's kind of interesting seeing so many with close to 100 hours of play-time for the game.

Thanks for stopping by, and if you finish the game the game, feel free to update your post with the number of hours it took you to finish!

of course that includes the whole main quest and a fair amount of side quests (which i didn't complete all of them and there are LOTS, like A LOT!) i think that's about the average complete time. This game is LONG!

it is a definite recommendation to (J)RPG lovers. an amazing story, a setting with a scale so grand and music so beautiful and exciting at the same time, it's beyond sublime.

"it is a definite recommendation to (J)RPG lovers. an amazing story, a setting with a scale so grand and music so beautiful and exciting at the same time, it's beyond sublime."

Wow, with all the awesome feedback comments, I'm kind of surprised NOA didn't produce more copies...BUT knowing their record with supply issues, and them not really supporting the Wii that well in later its years, maybe not.

Thanks for providing your time with the game, and for leaving the feedback! Are you looking forward to Monolith Soft's Wii U title?

Sadly I do not, and I recently saw the ridiculous price up on Amazon. It's like that damned Metroid trilogy. Though I do have a buddy who has this one, so I won't have as much trouble with this should I ever find the time to get around to it.

So here's hoping that as part of my 'job' - I can finish off Bioshock infinite this weekend. I also got about 1/3 of the way through Dead Space 2 so I'd ideally like to wrap both of those up shortly. :)

Over 190 hours. My partner wont give it back so he bought another copy. Absurd I know but we both need it at our houses...absurdly. Yes it looks beautiful on wii u. Play it people. Might replay it in japanese, loved the english though. It's nice to play again and just beat everything easily. Gives you a chance to fight the larger enemies.

As for this portion, "...and wasn't even strong enough to defeat some of the strong monsters walking around the game." does the game feature a lot of different monsters? I know the one of the ones in the X trailer above looked HUGE (and pretty cool), but I haven't played Xenoblade so I don't know how much variation the game has with the monsters in it.

BTW, if you own a Wii U (or not), are you looking forward to Monolith's Wii U title? Thanks for stopping by!

i've had the game for a year now and finally really started playing it a few days ago.there is a Web site called how long to beat. or something like that they have lots of data from players who beat it. you should check it out.

Being in the UK, I've had Xenoblade Chronicles for a while now, and it's just really great. The battle system is fun and different, the world looks huge and beautiful, especially for a Wii game... It's a game that kept impressing me, when I expected it to falter.

Well Nintendo just announced that they are ending the Nintendo Channel service in Japan. US can't be far behind. I really liked your articles on data from the Nintendo Channel... and was missing not having that data anymore in Wii Mode on the Wii U. Sad!

Yes, I have a Wii U, I am definitely planning on getting X when it releases for sure. I am also on your Wii U Friends List! :).

I too held off for a couple months in transferring from Wii U to Wii. In the end though, it was a no brainer for me -- I had a Wii with a dead disc drive that had all my save games minus Skyward Sword, Xenoblade, Fortune Street, and Last Story, and with saves for games like Mario Kart and Smash Bros not being transferable manually, the only way for me to gain access to those again was the transfer to Wii U. Fortunately, I was able to transfer from both my older Wii and newer Wii and keep both sets of save files.

"Well Nintendo just announced that they are ending the Nintendo Channel service in Japan. US can't be far behind."Yeah, saw that earlier today. As for the articles, I'll be trying to make one last data grab before they pull the Nintendo Channel down, and at least then it will be "final" data.

It's just unfortunate, as I was hoping to see games like Pandora's Tower and smaller WiiWare games finally debut I have been tracking for a while.

Haha! I just hit my "limit" on my Wii U Friends List, so it's a bit crazy keeping track sometimes of who I do/don't have on it!

The non-transferable games are an issue, especially Animal Crossing and Monster Hunter, as those were played for 100s of hours in our house, and it would be nice to be able to keep everything from them.

Shame on the Mii's being replaced also, I thought the Mii transfer thing was a bit odd, as I put some on our Wii controllers, and was hoping to transfer just the Miis to our Wii U, without having to do the full system transfer...maybe some of these issues will be addressed in the Wii U patches?

Animal Crossing and Monster Hunter saves transferred fine to the Wii U. The Mii's problem was basically this: I brought over my Miis from my old broken Wii to the new replacemnt Wii using Wii Remotes -- and Wii Fit and other save games that use the Miis picked them up automatically. BUT, the Mii's were no longer editable.

So when transferring to the Wii U, I transferred from the new Wii first, then the old Wii; thus, I got all my old Wii non-transferable save files, AND I got my Mii's editable again, but the Wii Fit etc save files got confused about the Miis and ended up switching to generic Mii's instead...

"Animal Crossing and Monster Hunter saves transferred fine to the Wii U."That's great to know! For some reason, I didn't think those files would transfer over properly, probably because they can't really be saved off the Wii to a SD card properly? I forgot what it was exactly...

Being that we only have one Wii system, I'm hoping the transfer process goes as planned when we finally do it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that just this year? (Or basically the article said 367 days, so a year and 2 days exactly.) So if this year they wound up finishing the story they may have played the first half last year. 80 hours and a person could easily beat the game. I'm just saying the stats are probably off due to people picking up where they left off would shorten some peoples time while giving other players more time. I still find it impressive the game has more hours logged into it per person than the time it takes to beat most games multiple times.

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